Posts Tagged ‘ Birmingham Post ’

Danny Smith: Tufty Shit

Maybe I’m romancing it because I’ve never been formally trained, or glimpsed behind the curtain of the modern newsroom. But I carry the naive notion that a journalist should be a Jedi wielding TRUTH like the Force and ramming the lightsaber of FACTS up the arse of all that is corrupt. I know it can’t be easy, not only do you have to meet deadlines, smoke fifteen packets of cigarettes a day, and wear a hat with a small ticket that says ‘PRESS’ on it but you also have find interesting things to write about every, single, day. So its not surprising that many journalists fall for the Dark Side of PR. Like this story here http://tinyurl.com/ykn7639. The story is about a squirrel that has been banned from a popular Midlands theme park. Now this theme park is only mentioned twice, but once is in the headline and the entire story is about a new ride — that, apparently defying all common sense, is so good even the fucking squirrel enjoys it. They even named the squirrel after the ride making sure the journo HAS to mention it at least once. Interestingly, the technique they are using to this...

Marc Reeves of The Birmingham Post spends a couple of hours talking shop, blogging and council newspapers with Michael Grimes on Sunday Local — the weekly local news show on Rhubarb Radio: It’s intelligent, honest and unafraid — something of media at its best — is it only volunteer-led internet media that has the space and motivation for this?

Created in Birmingham – Cluedo

Add this to the list of things I didn’t know about Birmingham. The awesome game Cluedo was created right here in Birmingham and it celebrates it’s 60th Birthday this year. Read the Birmingham Post’s coverage. ==Update== Following some discussion on the twitter it’s generally felt that Mr Pratt, who invented Cluedo, deserves recognition by the local Civic Society and the Broad Street Walk of Fame. Following my attempts to get John Wyndham on the Walk of Fame I’d like to offer my support to getting the inventor of Cluedo on the walk of fame. I’d like to see Anthony Pratt get a star on the Birmingham Walk of Stars on Broad Street (he’s created something that’s in the homes of millions of people, he’s given us hours of pleasure, so lets give something back). So far the walk of fame has celebrated four football related stars (either for teams or individuals), three musicians, two comedians and a radio soap opera, a sports commentator, a radio actor and Julie Walters. All deserving in their ways but I’d like your help to get a well deserving creative genius onto the walk of stars. Here’s what you need to do: 1) Go to the Walk...

There’s a, probably apocryphal tale, about a Soviet “long lasting lightbulb”being invented — it was a big splash story one day in Pravda, but from thereon in got less and less interesting, ending up with the tiny phrase ‘light bulb still on’ appearing every day in a tiny corner. And that’s how I felt about this story in the Birmingham Post this morning: Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch! The Lonely Planet says Birmingham is a “vibrant city”. Nice, but not new. Not “news”. Because they said that in 2005: Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch! and in 2007: Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch! and are saying at the moment (in the guide online — not updated yet): Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch! So, Birmingham still “vibrant” then, carry on, as you were.

Another day, another new thing from the Post. Today is launch day for “the first mobile site from a regional paper”. Point your phone at m.birminghampost.net and you’ll find a version of the site suitably squidged for your mobile. It’ll look a bit like this: Newer phones, iPhones and the like, are meant to use the “normal” web rather than a specially reduced mobile one, but there can be advantages even if you have one. For a start less images and adverts, which can mean quicker loading, and your first act isn’t to squint and zoom into the bit you want. The idea is that if you’re on the move you’ll not want to read stuff in depth, so not everything from a main site makes it onto a mobile one. On a personal tip, the blogs section of the Post site doesn’t make it to the mobile site, which is understandable if you’re aiming at fast news on the move, but quite a lot of us read long articles on our mobiles these days. The fact that you can do that on the bus is one reason paper sales have gone down. The new Post mobile site looks...

So today I read a paper version of the Birmingham Post for the second time in a week. Last Wednesday I picked up a copy before going on a plane and it was almost impossible to read, I couldn’t fold it into a readable shape without punching the bloke next to me (it was Ryanair and there’s about an inch between your nose and the seat in front). Today saw the paper relaunch at half the size — tabloid you’d call it, but there are connotations to that word that the people behind the paper wouldn’t like. It’s a sirius paper. And it now looks like this: And it looks nice, clean and spacious despite the drop in size. I’ve not tried reading it on a plane, but I did get the other half to drive me round and around the Robin Hood Island while I sat in her corsa — seat pulled right forward — and it was easy enough. I’m not taken with the lighter blue for the masthead (than has previously been used on the website) — it works better online, but is a little dull on paper. Any darker and it might have looked like...

Business before pleasure? The Post relaunches

The journalism blogosphere (a place where the word dinosaur is used more than any palaeontology convention) is awash with news of the Birmingham Post’s (and it’s owner Trinity Mirror’s) relaunch plans. In short (apart from changes in the production process, which aren’t unique to any newspaper these days — more cross platform working, job losses unfortunately) there were three big threads: going tabloid (in size rather than attitude) dropping the Saturday edition “focusing on business news” While I might say I would prefer the Post to go Berliner in size (a la the Guardian) that would require a big investment, whereas the tabloid size is well established. Papers and magazines have been reducing in size for a few years, without any noticeable drop in quality, so I’m sure that will pan out okay. Not publishing on Saturdays is really en extension of the decision to focus in on business readers. If the sales (2,000 lower of a Sat – 20% lower according to the Press Gazette) on Saturdays don’t produce enough profit as it is then a business focused paper on a weekend would struggle more. Both of these things are related to people consuming news online a lot...

Last year‘s Birmingham Post Power Fifty caused a lot of fun in offices around the city. I remember Chas Watkin (Editor of Midlands Today) being referred to as “number 48″ by his newsroom staff for a few days, which is alright unless you’re the second “most powerful” and get people sniggering “number two” behind your back. I went to the launch of this year’s list, where Marc Reeves of the Post admitted that it was designed to “infuriate” and stimulate debate (and one would hope from his point of view stimulate paper sales and website traffic). The Post have been brave and put the entire list up online, with open comments on each entrant (it’s a bit flaky at the moment — the paging system doesn’t work and the images are missing, but the list is there and you can comment on it). One can only hope their moderators are up to the task of the heated debate. Reading the list, and especially listening to the top ten being announced, it strikes you how difficult it would be to work out a list of people in order of real ‘power’ (influence is a better term, I think). You’d probably...

Post Blog Post creates Post mini Post storm Post

Paul Dale in his Birmingham Post blog reports that Lib Dem Counicllor/MP John Hemming is “accusing the council elections office of presiding over “pro-Labour bias” in polling stations and doing everything possible to help Labour at the expense of the other political parties.” Pretty serious accusations, but John hasn’t backed off – he’s been commenting on the Post blog post… One to watch

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Posts Tagged ‘ Birmingham Post ’

Danny Smith: Tufty Shit

Forward with the Post

Created in Birmingham – Cluedo

Birmingham still “vibrant”

I’m on the phone

Post Relaunch Launched

Business before pleasure? The Post relaunches

Powerbook

Post Blog Post creates Post mini Post storm Post

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